By Peter Spasov
Storytelling is about performance and is
often metaphorical. Although we can draw
on a vast collection of stories from which to tell, some strive to make up
their own fiction. It is an ambition
of mine to write fiction which is one of the reasons for joining Peterborough Storytellers.
Later, I enrolled in a MOOC (Massive
Open Online Course) named Stunt Writing
For Personal Growth. (See link at
the end of this article.) This is a process
that uses writing as a tool for you to learn about yourself and gain skills in
communicating your own unique story. I
suspect the intent is for effectively communicating one’s personal story, but I
highjacked it for inventing a story. I’m
not sure, but I suspect many people take this course more for a self-help
reason. Although everyone including me can
use help, I’m not in a personal crisis, as far as I know. I just want to develop creative writing,
period. Alas, it is also hard work and
requires persistence.
In short, I choose as my stunt, the
challenge to write an original story and perform it in front of an audience. To raise the stakes a bit, I included the
task to write about the experience and post it in Peterborough Storyteller’s blog. Hence, here it is: voilá.
It’s hard to remember my exact
inspiration process. For sure, I’ve
always pictured a theme of time travel and seeing if you could prosper in the
past. And I enjoy Science Fiction, the
type that requires thinking. I am not a
‘shoot ‘em up and zap ‘em with laser beams’ kind of guy. There are dog people and there are cat
people. Similarly, there are Star Trek
people and Star Wars people. I happen to
be a dog person who likes Star Trek. If
you wish, think Sheldon Cooper in the TV series Big Bang Theory.
My story attempt doesn’t normally fit
the typical traditional oral story or one from traditional experience which
storytellers usually perform. However, I
did not want something requiring the supernatural or implausible. For that reason, I decided that time travel
would be virtual. Maybe a geekish
science fiction genre doesn’t fit. Yet
even this story fits the oral traditional genre even if in a very unusual
way. Upon later reflection, I see that
the story is a form of journey or quest, so maybe not so original after all.
The story concept is a variation of
Mark Twain’s ‘Connecticut Yankee’, except that time travel is not practical -
and our setting is in the future when virtual reality is well developed. The ‘Connecticut Yankee’ game is a realistic
simulation of travelling back in time. The
point is to see how well a modern person can get by in the past. In theory, we modern people should have
advantages by inventing things. The
protagonist regrets not being practical.
For example, if you found yourself in ancient Rome, it would be
impossible to impress the Romans with modern things like computer abilities or
movie star trivia – because there are no computers and movies at that time.
The brief story line is a follows. My teller is Antonio Lanyard and he is
introducing the premise of the game. His
drop (the act of beginning the trip
to the past) occurs during medieval times in what is now Switzerland, but at
that time is essentially run by an Austrian.
As the teller, I try to convey some unusual aspects as in the clothing being
worn, the smells and possible daily habits.
Antonio struggles because he has no ‘practical’ skills, and after
hearing a joke, he tries to become a jester for a Landammann (roughly
equivalent to a Chief Magistrate). His
attempt involves telling a joke. Antonio
is thinking about the standard joke structure of how many x do you need to change a light bulb. Of course, he has to modify the joke.
He ends up having to demonstrate
lighting a candle by clanging bells to create a spark. Antonio has to bluff himself out of this
predicament. He stumbles upon a stall
tactic: he will teach Euchre. To teach the
game, he needs to invent playing cards.
At the end, when people are playing cards in candlelight, he cheats by
using another candle to light the Landammann’s candle. This doesn’t impress the locals but he has an
idea as to how to justify his act. But suddenly Antonio needs to defecate. I end my story at the point when he wonders
what people use as toilet paper.
When I performed my story, the theme
for story tellers that evening was about connecting with nature. In its own indirect way, in my story there is
a connection to this theme. Many of us
can no longer identify common plants and animals, can’t grow or make our food
and other similar skills. This is
because we can get by without them. However,
if you find yourself in a situation as in the past, these skills suddenly
become necessary. Even our abilities to
think have declined because of our dependency on electronic assistants and the
Internet.
I am thinking of continuing my
‘Connecticut Yankee’ story. What I ended
up writing became somewhat more bizarre, with some attempts at humour. Whether it succeeded or not in conveying a
message of being practical is another matter.
Alas, there is no real ending and that was intentional. In my performance, when I said ‘the end,’
that was a lie. In retrospect, I should
have said ‘to be continued.’ Whether I
continue this story remains to be seen.
My own feeling about performing the
story is mixed. Honestly, I am uncertain
as to what people thought of it. It may
have had too much, and as mentioned before, I could have stated there is more
to tell but that is left for another time.
One listener talked to me at some
length due to his Swiss background. We
talked about the history. The setting is
the same time and place for a Swiss hero, William Tell. He is famous for being forced to shoot an
arrow at an apple set upon his son’s head because he wouldn’t pay the proper
respect to the Austrian lord, Gessler.
When writing my story, I researched things such as playing cards,
bathrooms, clothing and historical characters amongst other things. I chose the town of Altdorf more or less
arbitrarily but I have actually visited the place. What I remember most is how small the sky is
and that Altdorf is by a lake surrounded by mountains.
My story is technical in parts. I
wanted to keep the story realistic, and that meant introducing technical
elements. Spending more time to ease through
these parts might help. An alternative
would be to have an imaginary world with time travel, or turn it into a dream
(a big cheat) or write it in a more mythic fantasy style.
But I am a science geek so I have
attempted this version of my story in terms of a virtual reality context,
albeit extremely sophisticated, but plausibly it could exist in the future.
Want more information about the MOOC?
Check out this link:
It will probably run again in a few
months.
All Rights Reserved by Peter Spasov (2014)
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